Talked with some buddies who have been doing really well out there this year. Hunting around the islands near franks. Heard liberty has been decent too. I went out one day and it was lights out and the next day it was slim pickin. Just gotta hit it right.

Slow have you ever even been on the delta? Its an awful long way from San Jose. Truth is the delta is hurting for water (and ducks) as much as everyone else. most of the private refuges have not started water yetand none of the creeks are flowing. Between the shity tides and the hyacinth its hard just finding water to hunt. when you do, There is no flight. There are some specs on the big islands and a few sqeakers around. Sandy's started showing up a couple weeks ago. the horrible hatch we had is not just the mallards, the woody's had a hard spring as well. I would be suprised if the delta was shooting even a .5 average right now. and would be more inclined to say half that. so if 4 of you go hunt the delta... you'll be lucky to kill a duck between you. My money is on the grasslands .. the feds have all the water and it seems all the pic's I've been seeing are from points south.

#1wingnut wrote: My money is on the grasslands .. the feds have all the water and it seems all the pic's I've been seeing are from points south.

Maybe if you are in a club or the only guy to find the X that day but it's pretty tough out there. There are entire fuges coming back with Zeros for the day or not even having a #2 bird being killed.

From November 6th through the 10th, 852 hunters killed 592 ducks in the grasslands for an average of 0.69.

Coot has been the #1 bird on a shoot day at San Luis and twice at Kesterson as the #1 and #2 bird. Snipe was number two last Saturday at Salt slough, and Ruddy duck was #2 bird at gadwall. Not to mention the most occurring #1 bird and #2 bird has been the Spoony, where it was the #1 bird 37% or the #1 or the #2 bird 55% of the time.

Things are going great in the grasslands! I think a lot of people can say its the worst it has ever been in a long time.

While there are mallards getting killed, the days when it was the #1 bird being killed, there were and avg of 16.5 birds killed on that refuge that entire day. When its the #1 or the #2 bird the average number of birds being killed is 13.4. That's the total bird count, not just the mallards so on average it could be that when mallards are the #1 bird, the least amount of them being killed is in the range from 9-15 mallards or as the #1 or #2, 7-12 mallards. It's unreal how bad it is out there.

I took the boat out yesterday scouting. It was poor at best in the delta. I saw a lot of dust where the farmers were still working the land and were not flooding the islands yet. saw a few geese and very few ducks.